In examination of that marvelous vision of the Prophet Daniel (Chap. vii.)
we saw how Prophet Muhammad was escorted by the myriads of celestial beings
and conducted to the glorious presence of the Eternal; how he heard the words
of honor and affection which no creature had ever been favor- ed with (2 Cor.
xii.); how he was crowned to the dignity of the Sultan of the Prophets and invested
with power to destroy the "Fourth Beast" and the "Blasphemous Horn." Further,
we saw how he was authorized to establish and proclaim the Kingdom of God on
earth; how all that human genius can possibly imagine of the highest honors
accorded by the Almighty to a beloved worshiper and to His most worthy Messenger
could be ascribed to Prophet Muhammad alone. It should be re- membered that
among all the Prophets and Messengers of Allah, Prophet Muhammad alone figures
like a tower above all; and the grand and noble work he accomplished stands
a permanent monument of his honor and greatness. One cannot appreciate the value
and importance of Islam as the unique bulwark against idolatry and polytheism
unless the absolute Oneness of God is earnestly admitted. When we fully realize
that Allah is the same God whom Adam and Abraham knew, and whom Moses and Jesus
worshipped, then we have no difficulty in accepting Islam as the only true religion
and Prophet Muhammad as the Prince of all the Prophets and Worshipers of God.
We cannot magnify the greatness of Allah by con- ceiving Him now as a "Father,"
now as a "Son," and now as a "Holy Ghost," or to imagine Him as having three
persons that can address each other with the three singular personal pronouns:
I, thou, he. By so doing we lose all the true con- ception of the Absolute Being,
and cease to believe in the true God. In the same way, we cannot add a single
iota to the sanctity of the religion by the institution of some meaningless
sacraments or mysteries; nor can we derive any spiritual food for our spirits
from feeding upon the corpse of a prophet or an incarnate deity; for by so doing
we lose all idea of a true and real religion and cease to believe in the religion
altogether. Nor can we in the least promote the dignity of Prophet Muhammad
if we were to imagine him a son of God or an incarnate deity; for by so doing
we would entirely lose the real and the historical Prophet of Mecca and fall
uncon- sciously into the abyss of polytheism. The greatness of Prophet Muhammad
consists in his establishing such a sound, plain, but true religion, and in
the practical application of its precepts and principles with such precision
and resolution that it has never been possible for a true Muslim to accept any
other creed or faith than that which is professed in the for- mula: "I believe
there is no god except Allah, and that Muhammad is the Messenger of Allah."
And this short creed will continue to be the faith of every true believer in
Allah to the Day of the Resurrection.
The great destroyer of the "Eleventh Horn," that personified Constantine the Great and the Trinitarian Church,
was not a Bar Allaha ("Son of God"), but a Bar Nasha
("Son of Man") and none other than Prophet Muhammad al-Mustapha who actually established the Kingdom of God upon earth.
It is this Kingdom of God that we are now to examine and expound.
It would be remembered that it was during the Divine audience of
the Sultan of the Prophets, as given in Daniel, that it was
promised that:
"The kingdom and the dominion and the greatness
of the kingdom under all heaven shall be given to the
people of the Saints of the Most High; its (the people's)
kingdom (shall be) a kingdom for ever, and all dominions shall serve and obey it" (Dan. vii. 22 and 27).
The expressions in this prophetical passage that the Kingdom
of God shall consist of "the People of the Saints of the Most
High," and that all other dominions or powers shall serve
and obey that people, clearly indicate that in Islam the
Religion and State are one and the same body, and consequently
inseparable. Islam is not only the Religion of God, but also
His earthly empire or kingdom. In order to be able to form
a clear and true idea concerning the nature and the constitution of the "Kingdom of God on earth" it is necessary to
cast a glance upon the history of the religion of Islam before
it was perfected, completed, and formally established by God
Himself under His Messenger Muhammad.
1. ISLAM BEFORE PROPHET MUHAMMAD WAS NOT THE KINGDOM OF GOD
UPON EARTH, BUT ONLY GOD'S TRUE RELIGION
Those who believe that the true religion of Allah was
revealed only to Abraham and preserved by the people of
Israel alone, must be very ignorant students of the Old
Testament literature, and must have a very erroneous notion
of the nature of that religion. Abraham himself offered
tithes to the King and Imam (l.) of Jerusalem and was blessed
by him (Gen. xiv. 18). The father-in-law of Moses was also
an Imam and a Prophet of Allah; Job, Balaam, Ad, Hud,
Loqman, and many other prophets were not Jews. The
various tribes and nations like the Ishmaelites, Moabites,
Ammonites, Edomites, and others which descended from the
sons of Abraham and Lot, knew God the Almighty though
they too, like the Israelites, fell into idolatry and ignorance.
But the light of Islam was never entirely extinguished or substituted by idolatry. Idols or images, which were considered
as "sacred" and as household gods by the Jews, as well as
their kindred nationalities, and usually called "Traphim"
(Gen. xxxi.) in the Hebrew, were, in my humble opinion of
the same nature and character as the images and idols which
the Orthodox and Catholic Christians keep and worship in
their houses and temples. In those olden times of ignorance
the idols were of the kind of "identity card" or of the nature
of a passport. Is it not remarkable to find that Rachel
(Rahil), the wife of Jacob and the daughter of Laban, should
steal the "traphim" of her father? (Gen. xxxi). Yet Laban
as well as her husband were Muslims, and on the same day
raised the stone "Mispha" and dedicated it to God!
------------- Footnote (1) In Hebrew these old Imams are called Cohen,'
and rendered by Christians as "Priest." A Jewish priest can never be identified
with a Christian Sacramentarian priest. ------------- end of footnote
The Jews in the wilderness, inebriate with the wonders and miracles worked
day and night - their camp shadowed by a miraculous cloud at daytime and illuminated
by a pillar of fire at night, themselves fed with the "manna" and "Salwai" -
as soon as the Prophet Moses disappeared for a few days on the misty top of
Mount Sinai, made a golden calf and worshipped it. The history of that stubborn
people from the death of Joshua to the anointment of King Saul, covering a period
of more than four centuries, is full of a series of scan- dalous relapses into
idolatry. It was only after the close of the revelation and the Canon of their
holy Scriptures in the third century before Christ that the Jews ceased to worship
idols, and have since remained monotheists. But their belief in the Oneness
of God, though it makes them Unitarians, does not entitle them to the qualification
of being called "Muslims," because they have stubbornly rejected both the persons
and the revelations of Prophets Jesus and Muhammad. It is only through submission
to the Will of God that a man can attain peace and become Muslim, otherwise
the faith without obedience and submission is similar to that of the devils
who believe in the existence of Allah and tremble.
As we possess no records concerning the other peoples
who were favored with Divine Revelations and with the Prophets and Imam sent to them by God, we shall only content
ourselves with the declaration that the religion of Islam existed among Israel and other Arab peoples of old, sometimes
more luminous, but mostly like a flickering wick or like a
dim spark glimmering in a dark room. It was a religion
professed by a people who soon forgot it, or neglected it, or
transformed it into pagan practices. But all the same there
were always individuals and families who loved and worshipped God.
It seems that the Jews, especially the masses, had no
true conception of God and of religion as the Muslims have
had of Allah and Islam. Whenever the people of Israel
prospered and was successful in its wars, then Jahwah was
acknowledged and worshipped; but in adverse circumstances
He was abandoned and the deity of a stronger and more
prosperous nation was adopted and its idol or image worshipped. A careful study of the Hebrew Scripture will show
that the ordinary Jew considered his God sometimes stronger
or higher, and sometimes weaker, than those professed by
other nations. Their very easy and reiterated relapse into
idolatry is a proof that the Israelites had almost the same
notion about their El or Yahwah, as the Assyrians had of
their own Ashur, the Babylonians of Mardukh, and the
Phoenicians of their Ba'al. With the exception of the Prophets and the Sophis, the Muslims of Torah, the Israel of the
Mosaic Law, never rose equal to the height of the sanctity of
their religion nor of the true conception of their Deity.
The faith in Allah and a firm conviction and belief in a future
life was not ingrained and implanted in the spirit and in the
heart of that people.
What a contrast, then, between the Muslims of the Qur'an,
the believers of the Islamic Law, and the Muslims
of Torah or the Mosaic Law! Has it ever been seen and
proved that a Muslim people abandoned its Mosque, Imam,
and the Qur'an, and embraced any other religion and acknowledged that Allah was not its God? Never! It is extremely unlikely that a Islamic Muslim community, so
long as it is provided with the Book of Allah, the Mosque and
the Mullah, could relapse into idolatry or even into
Christianity.
I am aware of the certain so-called Tartar families who
embraced the Orthodox Christian Faith in Russia. But I
can assure my readers, on authentic authority, that these
"Tartars" were those Mongols who, long after the subjugation of Russia and the establishment of the "Altin Ordu"
by Batu Khan, were either still pagans or newly converted
to Islam and seem to have been forced or induced to join the
Russian Church. And in this connection it should not be
ignored that this happened after the Muslim power of the
"Golden Horde" ("Altin Ordu") tumbled down at the tremendous invasion of Timur Lang (Tamerlane). On the
contrary, Muslim traders and merchants, in China as well as
in the dark continent of Africa, have always propagated their
Holy Religion; and the millions of Chinese and negro Muslims
are the fruit of these unpaid and unofficial Mussulman missionaries. It is evident from the above that the true religion
of God before Prophet Muhammad was only in its infancy, that it
remained immature and undeveloped amongst the Hebrews,
although it shone brilliantly in the life of the true worshipers of
Yahwah. Under the direction of the God-fearing Judges
and the pious Kings of Israel, the government was always
theocratic, and as long as the oracles of the Prophets were
favorably received and their injunctions duly executed, both
the religion and the nation prospered.
But the True Religion of God never took the form of the
Kingdom of God as it did under the Qur'anic regime. Allah
in His Infinite Wisdom had decreed that four great Powers of
Darkness should succeed each other before His own Kingdom was to be established. The great ancient civilizations
and empires of the Assyro-Chaldeans, of the Medo-Persians,
of the Greeks and of the Romans, had to appear and flourish,
to persecute and oppress the people of God, and to perpetrate all the evil and wickedness that the Devil could devise.
All the glory of these great powers consisted in their worshipping the Devil; and it was this "glory" that the "Prince
of the Darkness" promised to grant to Jesus Christ from the
top of a high mountain if he were only to follow him and
worship him.
2. CHRIST AND HIS DISCIPLES PREACHED THE KINGDOM OF GOD
They were, it is true, the harbingers of the Kingdom of God upon earth. The
soul and the kernel of the Gospel of Jesus is contained in that famous clause
in his prayer: "Thy Kingdom come." For twenty centuries the Christians of all
denominations and shades of belief have been praying and repeating this invocation,
"Thy Kingdom come," and God alone knows how long they will continue to pray
for and vainly anticipate its coming. This Christian anticipation of the coming
of the Kingdom of God is of the same nature as the anticipation of Judaism for
the coming of Messiah. Both these anticipation exhibit an inconsiderate and
thoughtless imagination, and the wonder is that they persistently cling to this
futile hope. If you ask a Christian priest or parson what he thinks of the Kingdom
of God, he will tell you all sorts of illusory and meaningless things. This
Kingdom is, he will affirm, the Church to which he belongs when it will overcome
and absorb all the other heretical Churches. Another parson or priest will harangue
on the "millennium." A Salvationist or a Quaker may tell you that according
to his belief the Kingdom of God will consist of the new-born and sinless Christians,
washed and cleansed with the blood of the Lamb; and so forth.
The Kingdom of God does not mean a triumphant
Catholic Church, or a regenerated and sinless Puritan
State. It is not a visionary "Royalty of the Millennium."
It is not a Kingdom composed of celestial beings, including
the departed spirits of the Prophets and the blessed believers,
under the reign of a divine Lamb; with angels for its police
and gendarmes; the Cherubs for its governors and judges;
the Seraphs for its officers and commanders; or the
Archangels for its Popes, Patriarchs, Bishops, and evangelical
preachers. The Kingdom of God on earth is a Religion, a
powerful society of believers in One God equipped with faith
and sword to fight for and maintain its existence and absolute
independence against the Kingdom of Darkness, against all
those who do not believe that God is One, or against those
who believe that He has a son, a father or mother, associates
and coevals.
The Greek word euangelion, rendered "Gospel" in
English, practically means "the enunciation of good news."
And this enunciation was the tidings of the approaching
Kingdom of God, the least among whose citizens was greater
than John the Baptist. He himself and the Apostles after
him preached and announced this Kingdom to the Jews,
inviting them to believe and repent in order to be admitted
into it. Jesus did not actually abrogate or change the Law
of Moses, but interpreted it in such a spiritual sense that he
left it a dead letter. When he declared that hatred was the
root of murder, lust the source of fornication; that avarice
and hypocrisy were as abominable sins as idolatry; and that
mercy and charity were more acceptable than the burntofferings and the strict observance of the Sabbath, he practically abolished the letter of the Law of Moses in favor of
its spiritual sense. These spurious and much interpolated
Gospels report frequent parables and references of Christ to
the Kingdom of God, and to Bar-Nasha or the Son of Man,
but they are so corrupted and distorted that they have succeeded, and still succeed, in misleading the poor Christians
to believe that by "Kingdom of God" Jesus only meant his
Church, and that he himself was the "Son of Man."
These important points will be fully discussed, if Allah
wills, later on; but for the present I have to content myself
with remarking that what Prophet Jesus announced was, it was Islam
that was the Kingdom of God and that it was Prophet Muhammad
who was the Son of Man, who was appointed to destroy the
Beast and to establish the powerful Kingdom of the People
of the Saints of the Most High.
The religion of God, until Jesus Christ, was consigned chiefly to the people
of Israel; it was more material and of a national character. Its lawyers, priests,
and scribes had dis- figured that religion with a gross and superstitious literature
of the traditions of their forefathers. Christ condemned those traditions, denounced
the Jews and their leaders as "hypocrites" and "the children of the Devil."
Although the demon of idolatry had left Israel, yet later on seven demons had
taken possession of that people (Matt. xii. 43-45; Luke xi. 24-26).
Christ reformed the old religion; gave a new life and
spirit to it; he explained more explicitly the immortality of
the human soul, the resurrection and the life in the next
world; and publicly announced that the next Messiah whom the
Jews were expecting was not a Jew or a son of David, but
a son of Ishmael whose name was Ahmad, and that he would
establish the Kingdom of God upon earth with the power of
the Word of God and with sword. Consequently, the religion of Islam received a new life, light and spirit, and its
adherents were exhorted to be humble, to show forbearance
and patience. They were beforehand informed of persecutions, tribulations, martyrdoms, and prisons. The early
"Nassara," as the Qur'an calls the believers in the Gospel of
Jesus Christ, suffered ten fearful persecutions under the
Roman Emperors. Then comes the Emperor Constantine and
proclaims liberty for the Church; but after the decisions and
the Trinitarian Creed of the Nicene Council in 325 A.C., the
Unitarian Muslims (l) were submitted to a series of new and
even more cruel persecutions by the Trinitarians, until the
advent of Prophet Muhammad (upon whom be peace and blessings).
----------- Footnote 1. Jesus Christ has never authorized his followers
to call themselves "Christians". There is no better title for the early Unitarians
than "Muslims." AD. ----------- end of footnote 3. THE NATURE AND CONSTITUTION
OF THE KINGDOM OF GOD
There is a call to prayer repeated aloud five times
a day from the minarets and the mosques in every part of
the globe where the Muslims live. This anthem is followed
by a most solemn worship of Allah by His faithful worshipers.
This call to prayer is called Adhan (Azan). This is
not all; every action, enterprise and business, however important or trifling it may be, is begun with the words Bismi 'l-Lah,
which means "in the Name of Allah," and ends with an
Al-Hamdu li'l-Lah, meaning "praise be to Allah!" The
bond of faith which binds a Muslim to his Eternal King is
so strong, and the nearness between the Sovereign and His worshiper
is so close, that nothing, however powerful or seductive,
can separate him from Allah. The Qur'an declares that Allah is
nearer to one than the life-vain.
Never was there a favorite courtier who, in his sentiments of affection, devotion, obedience, and respect for his
beneficent monarch, could ever equal those which a Muslim
entertains towards his Lord. Allah is the Owner of the
Heavens, Earth and Universe, He is the King of kings and the Lord
of lords. He is the King and the Lord of every Muslim in particular,
for it is a Muslim alone who thanks and praises the Almighty King
for all that happens and befalls him, be it prosperity or adversity.
Nearly three hundred million Muslims or more are endowed
with the same feelings of faith and trust in Allah.
It is evident, therefore, that the nature of Islam consists
in its being the only real and truly Theocratic Kingdom on
earth. Allah need no longer send Messengers or Prophets
to convey His Messages to the Muslims as He used to do to
Israel and other Hebrew peoples; for His will
is fully revealed in the Holy Qur'an and imprinted on the
minds of His faithful worshipers.
As to the formation and the constitution of the Kingdom
of God, inter alia, the following points should be noted: -
(a) All Muslims form one nation, one family, and one brotherhood. I need not
detain my readers to study the various quotations from the Qur'an and the Hadith
(Quotations of the Prophet) on these points. We must judge the Muslim society,
not as it presents itself now, but as it was in the time of Prophet Muhammad
and his immediate successors. Every member of this community is an honest worker,
a brave sol- dier, and a fervent believer and devotee. All honest fruit of the
toil belongs by right to him who earns it; nevertheless the law makes it impossible
for a true Muslim to become excessively wealthy. One of the five foundations
of Islam is the duty of almsgiving, which consists of sadaqa and zakat, or the
voluntary and the obligatory alms. In the days of the Prophet and the first
four Caliphs, no Muslim was known to be enormously rich. The national wealth
went into the common treasury called "Baitu 'I-Mal," and no Muslim was left
in need or want.
------------- Footnote (1) The Jihad or "Holy War" is also an obligatory
practice of piety. ------------- end of footnote
The very name "Muslim" signifies literally "a maker of
peace." You can never find another human being more
docile, hospitable, inoffensive and peaceful a citizen than a
good Muslim. But the moment his religion, honor, and
property are attacked, the Muslim becomes a formidable foe.
The Qur'an is very precise on this point: "Wa la ta'tadu" -
"And you must not transgress" (or take the offensive). The
Holy Jihad is not a war of offence, but of self-defense.
Though the robbers, the predatory tribes, the semi-barbarous
nomad Muslims, may have some religious notions and believe
in the existence of Allah, it is the lack of knowledge and of
religious training which is the root-cause of their vice and
depravity. They are an exception. One can never become
a good Muslim without the religious training and education.
(b) According to the description of the Prophet
Daniel, the citizens of the Kingdom of God are "the People
of the Saints." In the original Chaldish or Aramaic text,
they are described as "A'mma d' qaddishid' I'lionin," an
epithet worthy only of the Prince of the Prophets and of his
noble army of the Muhajirm (Emigrants) and the Ansar
(Helpers), who uprooted idolatry from a great part of Asia
and Africa and destroyed the Roman Beast.
All the Muslims, who believe in Allah, in His angels, Books, and Prophets;
in the Day of the Resurrection and Judgment; that the good and evil are from
Allah; and perform their pious practices according to their ability and with
good will, are holy saints and blessed citizens of the King- dom. There is no
grosser religious ignorance than the belief that there is a person called the
Holy Ghost who fills the hearts of those who are baptized in the names of three
gods, each the third of the three, or the three of the third, and thus sanctifies
the believers in their absurdities. A Muslim believes that there is not one
Holy Spirit, but innumerable holy spirits all created and ministers of the One
Allah. The Muslims are sanctified, not by baptisms or ablution, but their spirits
are purified and sanctified by the light of faith and by the fire of zeal and
courage to defend and fight for that faith. John the Baptist, or rather Christ
himself (according to the Gospel of Barnabas), said: "I baptize you with water
unto repentance, but he who comes after me, he is stronger than I; he will baptize
you with fire and with the holy spirit." It was this fire and this spirit with
which Prophet Muhammad baptized the semi-barbarian nomads, the heathen Gentiles,
and con- verted them into an army of heroic saints, who transformed the old
waning synagogue and the decaying church into a permanent and strong Kingdom
of Allah in the promised lands and elsewhere.
4. THE PERMANENCE AND THE DIGNITY OF THE KINGDOM OF ALLAH
This is doubly assured by an Angel to Daniel. It is stated that
"all the nations under the heaven shall serve the People of
the Saints of the Most High." It requires no proof to say
that all the Christian Powers show a particular respect, and
even deference when necessary, not only to Muslim Powers,
to Muslim sacred places and mosques, but also to the local
institutions of their Muslim subjects. The mystery of this
"service" lies in this: in the first place, the Muslims always
inspire respect and fear through their dignified behavior,
attachment to their religion and obedience to just laws, and
their peacefulness; and secondly, because the Christian
Governments, as a rule, treat the Muslims with justice and
do not interfere with their laws and religion.
Space does not permit us to extend our observations over other points of this
Divine Religion and Kingdom, such as the Muslim Caliphas, Sultans, etc. Suffice
it to say that the Muslim Sovereigns are subject to the same Qur'anic laws as
their compatriots; that justice and modesty are the best safeguards for the
prosperity and stability of every State, Muslim or non-Muslim; and that the
spirit and the principles of the Book of Allah are the best guidance for all
legislation and civilization.
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